Scientists, Slaves, and Soldiers
by NightSpear
Summary: No one on Earth really liked Jonas at first. He didn't blame them--he didn't like himself very much, either, and he hadn't been a close friend of the man he'd killed to end up here. Spoilers: S6-10


Title: Scientists, Slaves, and Soldiers  
Rating/Category: PG/gen  
Spoilers: Up to season 10

XXXXX

**I.**

The first reports talked about a Goa'uld named Ra. Those reports cross-referenced other stacks of information about: Goa'uld, System Lord, Ra, Giza, Ancient Egyptian mythology, Abydos, Stargate, 1928, 1996. Jonas decided to read through all of those first before he moved on.

As a result, it took him his whole first two days in the space the SGC had granted him just to read all the information about the very first mission that had taken place before the SGC had been formed. Then he started on the next report.

After Ra had come Apophis. Technically, they had all been there at the same time, and many others had existed at the same time as Apophis, but the reports were written by SGC personnel from the point of view of the SGC, so Jonas mentally labeled the entire next section of the reports as _the Apophis years_.

His first attempt to talk to someone other than the airmen scattered around the corridors and people he had _had_ to talk to was Teal'c.

"Hi," Jonas said, smiling and hoping that openness would bridge the gap between him and the members of SG-1. "Can I ask you a question?"

"No," Teal'c said, and walked away.

Later, Sergeant Siler pulled him aside and told him that he'd interrupted the Jaffa on his way to join SG-1 in packing up Dr. Jackson's home. "Bad timing," Siler said, shrugging. "Teal'c actually has a real sense of humor if you catch him at a...you know...a better time."

Jonas didn't try again for weeks.

As it turned out, however, Apophis was already dead. The more pertinent threat, it seemed, was Anubis.

Luckily for him, the first battle against Anubis didn't end up being the first battle he lost. Granted, it wasn't a full-blown battle so much as a sustained siege designed to destroy all of Earth by blowing up its Stargate, and he'd spent most of it standing behind a desk with a clipboard (because no one was giving him a seat or desk). Still, it had convinced Major Carter that he could be useful. Even Rodney McKay had admitted that Jonas wasn't a complete idiot. Jonas gleaned from listening to people around base that that was probably the closest he would get to a compliment from Dr. McKay.

XXXXX

**II.**

"They taste good," Jonas said when Colonel O'Neill asked him about the bananas.

"That's it?" the colonel said. "No deeper meaning or anything?"

Jonas looked at his banana. "No."

"Sometimes, a banana is just a banana, sir," Sam said.

XXXXX

**III.**

No one on Earth really liked Jonas at first. He didn't blame them--he didn't like himself very much, either, and _he_ hadn't been a close friend of the man he'd killed to end up here. Being accepted onto SG-1 hadn't even helped in that way, except to ease his own conscience a little bit. It just made it clearer to everyone else that Jonas was there instead of Dr. Jackson.

In the end, it was General Hammond who called him to the office by the briefing room to sigh and say, "What am I going to do with you, Mr. Quinn?"

That was the last straw, really--the one heavy enough to break an animal's spine--and before Jonas knew what he was doing, he was saying, "Sir, I'm sorry--I'm so sorry."

"Mr. Quinn," the general said.

"I know that's not enough," Jonas continued hastily, "and I know there's nothing I could ever do to make up for it, but I'm just hoping that I've shown I can do _something_ to help. Not that that's...well, if there's anything--_anything_ that would--"

"Mr. Quinn!" the general said more loudly. "Jonas. _What_ are you talking about?"

Jonas stared at him. "Dr. Jackson, sir," he said. "What are _you_ talking about?"

The general sat back in his chair with another sigh. "Sit down," he said quietly. Jonas bit his lips and warily lowered himself into a chair. "Major Carter mentioned to me that there has been a certain animosity directed toward you."

"What?" Jonas said. "There has? I mean, of course there...but...she went to _you_, sir?"

"Normally..." the general said, then stopped. He looked at his desk for a moment, and said, "I say 'normally' as if this were a common occurrence, which I want to assure you it's not, not on my base. If it were anything less subtle, I have no doubt Major Carter herself--or perhaps Colonel O'Neill--would have taken care of it."

"Sir, I don't know what you mean," Jonas said, thinking privately that he wasn't so sure Colonel O'Neill would have stepped in on his behalf for any sort of animosity.

"Then it's not true that someone has been changing the password on your computer?" the general said. "Or that your memos aren't being delivered, or your requests are being delayed?"

"If it _is_ true, I didn't realize it," he said honestly. "I mean, maybe there was...but...I'm sure something just got mixed up, that's all. I'm still learning to use that computer, and I could've made any of those mistakes."

"Major Carter thinks it's a little more purposeful than that," the general said.

"Oh." The fact that there were people actively trying to chase him away from his spot, even if it was a spot he didn't really deserve, was a little disheartening. More embarrassing was the fact that he hadn't even realized it, although perhaps he should have--the efficiency and precision of SGC personnel was such that no tiny mistake should have been repeated so often. Even harassments were subtle and well-executed.

"From your reaction," the general said carefully, "may I assume you weren't deliberately hiding this from us?"

"No sir, I wasn't," Jonas said, but he would have done so if he'd known--being the youngest in everything he'd done since his childhood had taught him that complaining to the boss only made subtle harassments become subtler and sharper. He wondered who was doing it now, but then, most of the things had been happening near Dr. Jackson's office--the one he'd taken over. He supposed a lot of people were a bit unhappy about that, even if Sam had been the one to let him use it. Sam might be well-respected, but she wasn't the boss of the translators, and the translators had respected their old boss at least as much as they respected her.

General Hammond nodded. "All right. I'll take care of it."

"Take...care of...sir, nothing's actually happened," he insisted. "Nothing that--"

"I don't care if it's nothing more than people calling you names behind your back," the general said sternly. "It's unprofessional and unbefitting a member of my staff."

"Okay," Jonas said uncertainly. "But really, it could just be--"

"Don't worry about it, Mr. Quinn," the general said. "Now...don't get up yet," he added when Jonas started to stand. Jonas sat back down. "What were you saying about Dr. Jackson?"

Jonas felt his shoulders stiffen. "General, I...think you know what I was saying."

The general folded his hands on the desk. "Jonas, Dr. Jackson was a very good friend to many of us, including myself." Jonas nodded, looking at his knees. "But even if he was known around here as a civilian, he was expected to risk his life just as much as the rest of SG-1."

"Yes, sir, but--"

"But _you_ weren't, as a scientist and noncombatant in Kelowna," the general said. "It wasn't your responsibility to sacrifice yourself."

"But it was _his_?" Jonas said, shaking his head. "No, General, I should have done it. And--"

"It wasn't his responsibility to sacrifice himself for your people," the general said, "but nor is it your fault that he chose to do so."

"It was my fault for allowing it to be suppressed by my government," Jonas said.

"That's true," the general said. "But, as someone who deals often with politicians, I can assure you that I...understand the position you were in. The fact that you changed your mind--that you're here at all, even though it made you a fugitive--says a lot."

"I know I can't make it right," Jonas said.

"I don't expect anyone can," General Hammond said. "And I want you to do your job as a respected member of SG-1, not as someone trying to make up for something he didn't do."

"Yes, sir," Jonas said.

"You may go," the general said.

XXXXX

**IV.**

"I don't think that Colonel O'Neill was very comfortable having me around," Jonas admitted as he caught his breath.

Dr. Jackson frowned at him, though he'd come to learn that that particular expression didn't necessarily mean Dr. Jackson was unhappy. "That's not what he told _me_. He said you were a good man."

Jonas felt himself start to smile, even while he listened for the footsteps outside their door that would mean someone was about to burst in and attack them. "Really? He said that?"

"Yeah," Jackson said, raising his eyebrow. "What, you're shocked he never let on?"

Shrugging, Jonas said, "Anyway, now that you're back..."

"Let's worry about getting out of here first," Jackson suggested.

Right. Of course. Jonas nodded and thought quickly. "Rings?"

XXXXX

**V.**

For all Colonel O'Neill was a terrible diplomat (not that Jonas would have said that to his face), he was an excellent rabble-rouser. These people here weren't politicians; they were the rabble, and someone had to rouse them. Jonas had drawn every rhetorical trick from the colonel's arsenal, so he'd expected a somewhat more enthusiastic response when he called, "Who wants to join me?"

Instead, the room was silent. And then--"We're not soldiers," Heron said. A murmur of agreement swelled behind him.

"No--well, none of us is," Jonas said, faltering, and tried to return to his point with, "but neither are we slaves. The Ori are not gods--"

"Who cares about gods?" Eulalia snapped. "They killed my father. They could kill us all for being here--just for listening to you, Jonas!"

"Wait--"

She turned to leave. "I'm not listening," she said. "Go ahead and die for your ideals if you want--if any of you wants to live, you'll do as I'm doing and leave _now_."

Jonas watched half the room trickle out and flinched when the door slammed shut.

"What do you want from us?" a quiet voice said. Jonas turned to see Philon, an old friend from the Academy, looking thin and tired.

"We've been through so much in the last years," Jonas said. "There was the war between Kelowna, Tirania, and Andari, and then Anubis attacking, and then Ba'al's spying on us--"

"Who?" someone asked. "Anubis?"

"You don't know...who Anubis is?" Jonas said, not sure how someone could have missed a ship hovering over their planet until he remembered that not everyone here had been on that ship at the time, talking to Anubis's face.

"And who's Ba'al?" another added.

"You see," Philon said as Jonas glanced reflexively into the corner at Kianna Cyr, "all of this is new to us. Perhaps you came to the wrong people. We are scientists, Jonas. We haven't done the things you've done--you talk about them as if we had all been there, but we weren't. Maybe you're still a scientist, but you know what it's like to be a soldier, too, and we don't."

Jonas felt his own tiredness trying to come to the forefront and then decided abruptly that, if he was going to be called a soldier, then he might as well act like someone who was ready for a long fight that would probably end in their deaths.

He straightened his spine and said, "I don't condemn anyone who doesn't want to help me. But remember this. We are a strong people. We have lived in freedom for hundreds of years. Today, you have a choice: you can be a slave to the Ori, or you can fight for freedom--not just for ourselves, but for the Langarans who will come after us. You can fight for a world in which our children will know freedom, or you can sit back and let our future be"--someone walked out--"...be born into slavery. That's your choice."

"How?" someone asked. "We don't have weapons. Most of us don't know how to _use_ weapons."

Jonas looked around the room. "Many of you are scientists. Against what the Priors try to tell us, your mind is your greatest weapon. We can't beat them with staff weapons and guns. But if you join me, we'll find a way. Together--as the free Langara."

No one answered. Someone else left.

"Join me," Jonas said, and hoped the door would stay closed this time.

Only a handful stayed. Jonas counted them and tried to decide how many of the handful from yesterday would stay loyal to them, and added that to the handful from the day before and his estimates of the handfuls from tomorrow and the day after.

Then, a voice spoke up from the corner. "Jonas," Kianna said, looking as subdued as she had seemed ever since the Goa'uld had left her body. But just as Jonas knew all that had happened because he had been with SG-1, Kianna knew all that had happened because of the Goa'uld who had stolen her body. "Here we are. Now what?"

_Now what, indeed_. "If we get the chance, we contact the SGC," Jonas said. The thought struck him that they didn't even know if the SGC was safe from the Ori, but he couldn't think about that, so he ignored it. "Until then, we fight. And we will win."

"For someone who speaks against blind faith," a man said in the back, "that's a bold claim."

"I don't want your faith in me," Jonas said. "If you're going to believe in something, you believe in what's right. That's all I ask."

"Then we'll fight," Kianna said.

Jonas took a deep breath and nodded. "Then let's get started."


End file.
